or an insipid
harmony!'

'You surely do not object to the organ?--I fear I cannot wait, though,'
said Rosamund.

Miss Denham entreated her. 'Oh! do, madam. Not to hear me--I am not so
perfect a player that I should wish it--but to see him. Captain Beauchamp
may now be coming at any instant.'

Mr. Lydiard added, 'I have an appointment with him here for this
evening.'

'You build a cathedral of sound in the organ,' said Dr. Shrapnel, casting
out a league of leg as he sat beside his only half-persuaded fretful
guest. 'You subject the winds to serve you; that's a gain. You do
actually accomplish a resonant imitation of the various instruments; they
sing out as your two hands command them--trumpet, flute, dulcimer,
hautboy, drum, storm, earthquake, ethereal quire; you have them at your
option. But tell me of an organ in the open air? The sublimity would
vanish, ma'am, both from the notes and from the structure, because
accessories and circumstances produce its chief effects. Say that an
organ is a despotism, just as your piano is the Constitutional bourgeois.
Match them with the trained orchestral band of skilled individual
performers, indoors or out, where each grasps his instrument, and each
relies on his fellow with confidence, and an unrivalled concord comes of
it. That is our republic each one to his work; all in union! There's the
motto for us! Then you have music, harmony, the highest, fullest, finest!
Educate your men to form a band, you shame dexterous trickery and
imitation sounds. Then for the difference of real instruments from clever
shams! Oh, ay, one will set your organ going; that is, one in front, with
his couple of panting air-pumpers behind--his ministers!' Dr. Shrapnel
laughed at some undefined mental image, apparently careless of any
laughing companionship. 'One will do it for you, especially if he's born
to do it. Born!' A slap of the knee reported what seemed to be an
immensely contemptuous sentiment. 'But free mouths blowing into brass and
wood, ma'am, beat your bellows and your whifflers; your artificial
choruses--crash, crash! your unanimous plebiscitums! Beat them? There's
no contest: we're in another world; we're in the sun's world,--yonder!'

Miss Denham's opening notes on the despised piano put a curb on the
doctor. She began a Mass of Mozart's, without the usual preliminary
rattle of the keys, as of a crier announcing a performance, straight to
her task, for which Rosamund thanked her, li